Ichiro Suzuki constructs highly engineered garments for the most daring of men.
It takes a real cool cat to slip into a suit jacket with a 2‑D surface pattern that morphs into 3‑D cubes and pleats, or crackles like parched earth. That’s just the sort of client Ichiro Suzuki wants to dress in his bespoke handmade suits.
The London-based Japanese designer, a recent Royal College of Art graduate, has introduced a new visual code within the conservative lines of men’s tailoring. Before going solo, he cut his teeth at clothier Henry Poole & Co., on London’s respected Savile Row. Now he works with heavy wool, tartan and tweed, retooling the materials into extreme, intricate geometric patterns.
“I manipulate and texturize materials,” he says. “By washing, patching and embellishing them, I change their physical attributes.” In his 2013 collection “The Devil’s Cloth,” one dandy number features a tight arrangement of blue and white diamonds that haphazardly spill onto the trousers, while a houndstooth jacket is ornamented with magnified round patches of the classic pattern.
